Cebu’s “landmark” ordinance requiring national line agencies to consult with and gain the approval of the Capitol before they can implement programs and projects here has gained the support of top Cabinet officials.
During a meeting at the Capitol on Tuesday, April 25, Special Assistant to the President, Sec. Anton Lagdameo Jr., and DILG Sec. Benjamin “Benhur” Abalos Jr. expressed their support to Cebu Provincial Ordinance No. 2023-02 which was carried unanimously by the Provincial Board last April 5.
Sec. Abalos said he will send lawyers from Manila tomorrow to attend the meeting between Capitol and national line agencies for feedback and consultation regarding the ordinance’s implementing rules and regulations (IRR).
He said these will be lawyers either from the Executive Assistant’s Office or the Solicitor General’s who will sit down with Capitol lawyers first and discuss how the ordinance can be implemented.
Sec. Abalos, who was a long-term mayor of Mandaluyong City, said he perfectly understands the governor’s predicaments with national line agencies which would implement projects in his city without proper coordination with his office.
He said he once put up tarpaulins in a national highway in his city stating that the unfinished road works were not projects of the Mandaluyong but of the national government agency involved.
The governor, who also put up tarpaulins containing the same message in the national highway in Oslob, only laughed in approval, adding that it is really a blessing for the DILG to have a secretary who also had served at the local government level.
The governor also clarified to the Cabinet officials that the Capitol’s beef with the Bureau of Animal Industry does not involve President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who sits as concurrent secretary of the Department of Agriculture, on which BAI is an attached agency.
She said she is merely protecting Cebu’s P11-billion hog industry from BAI’s economically disruptive policies that target above all the small-scale hog raisers.
Sec. Lagdameo, who is also a hog raiser in his private life, said he understands the ins and outs of the hog industry, and lauds the governor’s pro-active protocols in addressing the supposed presence of ASF in Cebu, not by resorting to a sweeping culling order but through a more science-based and pro-business approach. | Ioannes P. Arong